You must be a newbie. I have opposed this occupation from the beginning on FR just like I opposed the Kosovo quagmire back in the late 1990s. I didnt' vote Democratic so my party didn't win anything
You didn't reply to my specific points (for example, do you think of the fact that Iraqis elected Shi'te fundamentalists?) but I will reply to yours. Neo-cons can be defined a group of folks who are mostly former Democrats, but broke from the Democratic party because they regarded it as "too isolationist." Neo-cons tend to favor using American foreign policy as a means to spread democracy (whether in Kosovo or Iraq) but also reject the traditional GOP opposition to welfare state.
btw, that was 'you' plural.
Bush haters won the election in November. Most of you under the title of Democrat/liberal, but most on this forum under that title of 'conservative.' The goal was the same. To get rid of 'RINOS' and damage President Bush.
You succeeded.
As far as your specific points go...........this is a government in its infancy, functioning under very difficult circumstances. I'm not going to call it a 'disaster' before it's gotten off the ground.
As far as the entire present mission in Iraq, it is far more than 'nation building' due to the terrorist threat in the ME. It is building an ally in a critical and dangerous region of the world.......and in that, it is already a success as well.
As for 'spreading democracy.' That was never the primary goal in Iraq. It was for the protection of the American people. Having an ally in the ME is the side effect of freeing them from a brutal dictatorship.
I appreciate the lofty goals of an isolationist like you, but they don't work in the real world. Terrorists like Saddam want to kill us, and we need to stop them.